Fine Glance

Dear, oh dear: Athers gives Vettori an absolute tooling read here

Check out my interview with Richard Bean on digyorkshire.com about his new play about cricket, The English Game, showing at West Yorkshire Playhouse, and then at theatres across the UK: http://www.digyorkshire.com/digPromotion.asp

Well, I suppose I ought to respond to all this clamouring for Ramprakash to be properly recalled

 

It's a tough one to be all that objective about, but one can but try. Forgetting his undoubted natural talent (an overrated commodity, if Ed Smith is to be believed) and the elegance of his batsmanhip, the man has felt the enormous benefit of actually going out there to enjoy his cricket these past two seasons, and the results have been there for all to see. True, he's always scored mountains of runs in county cricket, but these past two seasons have seen him dwarf all past achievements - his own, and virtually anybody else's

 

Still, I hear you squawk, county cricket's not as pressurised as Test cricket, is it, and we've unquestionably seen Ramps crack under that pressure before. Don't you recall, ffoulkes, Atherton's describing how he came across his friend muttering to himself over and over under the shower 'I can't do it any more... I can't do it any more... I can't do it any more' after yet another failue with the bat at Test level

 

Indeed I do remember it, my elaborately plumed friend, but I also recall Atherton stating, not two or three sentences later, that he believed that Ramps would play his best Test cricket past the age of 33. We've also read Ramprakash say for himself that remembering to actually enjoy cricket in the way that he did as an 18 year-old - trying 'to hit Malcolm Marshall over the top' - has helped him take the pressure off himself, and I really do think that he will take this newly re-found attaitude into the Test arena, should he be called upon

 

His age, then? Tosh, to use a polite expression. It's extremely well-known that Hobbs was at his most prolific after the age of 40, and scored his last Test century at the age of 46, an age that Ramps will not reach for some 9 years. Gooch made hay for England after 40. Alec Stewart could have batted past the same age, if required; Lara and a number of the recently retired Australian batsmen could have gone on playing past 40. But they didn't go on, did they? Yes, but they had nothing left to prove: Ramps still has a great deal to do until he is thought of as anything other than a tragic failure at Test level, and I can think of no greater motivator than the thought of putting one over one's incessant detractors

 

Any other obstacles? It would have helped his cause - not to mention poor old Owais Shah's - had Strauss failed in the 3rd Test in New Zealand rather than post a massive ton, for that number 3 spot would have been up for grabs at the very start of the summer otherwise, and it can't really help that Flintoff is looking fit enough to take his place in the team again  - but that will most likely happen at the promising Broad's expense. Strauss is in good nick, as his superb knock against Surrey proved, but may still fail early in the Test season. Shah, I just feel the selectors do not rate highly enough.

 

Selectors, you say? Surely Ramps doesn't have the confidence of the selectors, either

 

True enough, under the old regime, one always got the impression that the selectors thought that they were taking an enormous risk by selecting Ramprakash, a palpable lack of faith in him that the then emotionally fragile batsman could not have failed but ruefully be aware of. To my infinitesimal mind, the selectors treated the fellow abominably back then, picking him, then dropping him after a failure or two, picking him again, worrying about his nerves and thus dropping him again before he could get any momentum and then, most ridiculously of all, calling him in from the cold in 1999 to make him open the batting! Open the batting, by Jove! Mmm, just what he needed

A good few years ago, I spotted David Graveney walking across the forecourt of the then Conrad Hotel in Chelsea Harbour and I lament to this day my failure, coward that I am, to approach him and politely, cogently give him a piece of my mind on the Ramprakash issue. I may be wrong, but I feel that the inconsistent nature of Ramps's selection has had the most adverse effect on his England career

 

One final point - and I don't wish to hark on about Ramprakash's past England career - but Ramprakash was dealt a very bad turn during his last stint as an England batsman. You could sense from Ramprakash's uncharacteristically relaxed body language and easy-going shot selection that he knew that the game was up for him once the winter of 2001/2 was over (despite a fine 100-odd against the Australians in the final Test of the previous summer), and I think he batted all the better for it. One particular innings sticks in the memory, and had it not been for the first poor decision I had seen made against him up to that point in his career, I feel he that we may not even be discussing Ramprakash's Test career as a failed one at this point. The innings came against India, in the same Test match in which Vaughan was given out for handling the ball in front of the wicket, wherever it was, and I was in the sitting room of an MMC member - the father of one of my best friends - with another friend and the aforementioned one (yes, count them) watching Ramprakash making so very fluent a fifty that he looked certain to post a ton. As it happens, he got a bad leg-before decision and went, taking his Test career, it seemed. Certainly I think that's true, for he made harry-carry in New Zealand later that winter, refreshingly giving barely a toss about impressing the selectors by that point because, as I say, I think he knew that judgement had already been passed

 

In a nut-shell, Ramprakash is not reaching his 100th first class century as a player winding down to retirement, but one batting with greater vigour and expertise than he has done in his entire career; he knows, now, that talent alone will not suffice and has been through the mill enough times, both as a human being and a cricketer, to know that life has far greater pressures to offer than does a mere game (dare I describe it as such) and England's batting line-up is in need of one more experienced player of class. Who better, and under what better circumstances? If I'm wrong, well, then, we'll finally be able to judge Ramprakash's career with a degree of certainty, replace him, and, in the knowledge that he had been dealt with fairly, be done with this haunting

Ha! Great to see Freddy back to something like fitness and bowling, by the sounds of it, extremely well indeed. 2-40 from 16 overs in a four-day match against a very strong Somerset side is a very good return by anybody's standards, and he might have had more, too. Trescothick should have been his twice

Which all goes to show how important important Flintoff is to England - as a bowler. Even when he's not himself taking wickets, he creates opportunities and does the lesser bowlers around him a favour by applying pressure for them. Frankly, I rate Freddy as the best pace bowler in the world, alongside Mohammed Asif

I cannot help but agree, though, with Duncan Fletcher's assessment of his batting as not of being of a high enough standard - or, at least, as not being reliable enough - to justify him batting at 6 in Test cricket. Harsh? Not at all. Freddy bats one of two ways: with tremendous brilliance, or not at all. It's either crash, bang, wallop or block, block, block (the latter he can only do for so long before getting out)

So here we go: Fletcher vs. Freddy

As easy as it is to dislike Fletcher, his no-nonsense disciplinarian methods and sharp, tactical cricket mind really got England back on track, so much so that we were able to regain the Ashes for the first time since Fat Gat's time as captain. Things went a little askew after the summer of 2005, yes, but I hardly think that was down to him: the players, newly and ridiculously honoured, simply got too big for their boots and accordingly played some awful cricket up to and, cataclysmically, during the 2006/7 Ashes in Australia, with Freddy as captain in Vaughan's absence; thanks, no doubt, to pressure from those with vested financial interests in the game, for it surely should have been Strauss at that time). Still, it was hardly all down to Freddy, for England were, to a man, absolutely abysmal

Fast-forward to the disastrous (and everlasting) World Cup of 2007 (yes, I'm getting there) and the Fredalo incident

Now, I'm among the first to jump on my high horse when poorly-performing professional sportsmen are caught out on the piss, but some cricketers - some sportsmen - are different. Liam Plunkett shouldn't have been out, nor any other of the younger, un-proven players, but Freddy needs a blow-out: that's his way of letting off steam after a poor performance, and without such a blow-out, he simply won't be able to perform for you any time in the near future. Sorry, but not all sportsmen are the same

Compton, legend has it, was scoured for among the local hostelries on the day of a Test match, would be found slumped across one of their bars, woken by whatever necessary means, handed a bat and then heartily congratulated on his return to the pavillion a few hours later having made yet another inimitably dashing century. That was his way. Romario didn't like to train and his achievements in football prove that he didn't need to. Besty, Gazza and Greavesy all liked a drink and although, admittedly, drink was to prove to be of great detriment to each of them in their lives outside of the game, they are three of British football's very finest products

Some sportsmen, particularly those that the rest of a team looks to for talismanic inspiration, need a release and the Fredalo incident - or at least Freddy's involvement in it - was blown totally out of proportion. Fletcher, who strikes me as something of a control freak, took action against a talent and personality that he couldn't control, Vaughan toed the wrong line and Freddy found himself isolated - and looking the fool, in the eyes of our hypocritical central media, forthright though it is in its efforts to protect an Englishman's right to a drink when he wants one. As it happens, I believe those with any sense had total sympathy with Freddy

 

So, leave Freddy alone and he'll d the biz in his own way: simple as that. Fletcher? Leave him to stew, the sour puss

Michael Henderson in the Telegraph not too many months ago, collated a list of the players he discerned most pleasing to his eye, and I've since thought that I should do something similar according to my own tastes, though with a few stipulations. My first stipulation is that I be allowed two lists: one made up of players whom I have seen play in an acceptable number of Test matches during my lifetime; a second, if I may be given poetic license, made up of those cricketers whom I wish I might have seen. The second condition - and the challenge makes the thing a little more interesting, I think - is that the players selected make up an actual team capable of making good account of itself in a Test match. I'll be including my reasons for selecting - and not selecting - players as well

So to the first list...

M. J. Slater
M.P. Vaughan (c)
B.C. Lara
S.R. Tendulkar
C.L. Hooper
M.E. Waugh
K.C. Sangakkara (wk)
A. Flintoff
S.K. Warne
A.A. Donald
C.E.L. Ambrose

But for the exclusion of Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist and Murali, this could pass for a collection of the best 11 players of the past generation, but you'd be surprised how many cricketers from the generation that went before it I might have included (Robin Smith, Aravinda de Silva and Mohammad Azharuddin, for instance) despite my being a mere 26 - this XI was far more difficult to put together than I anticipated

Were it not for my desire to cushion the frenzy of Slater's hitting with the grace that Vaughan provides, Chris Gayle would most certainly have joined the New South Walean at the top of the order; but, then, Vaughan - along with Hooper and Lara - was always guaranteed to make this XI

Slater's 80 in the first Test of the 2001 Ashes at Lord's clinched his place in the side, a raging, violent display of severe hitting that made the ground ring all around with the crack of infant skulls on Trojan walls; gleam despite its awfulness

Vaughan is a batsman from another time, his classical play sonorous below the visual unmelodiousness of his synthetic peers. Overpitch anywhere around off-stump and he will create a milky way through the covers, drop it too centrally short and the audience holds dead still for the coming, immaculate pull like the anticipant audience beneath an elaborate Swiss cuckoo clock as it prepares to strike noon, waiting for the inevitable to marvellously occur

Where then Gower? Much as I would have loved to have included Gower, I simply don't remember having seen him bat, though I know that I did: Gooch's gruffly effective blacksmithery had me clutching at my throat for breath, so perhaps I did not notice Gower because, until we are starved of breath, especially as children, we rarely pay the air due heed. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that Gower prematurely retired from cricket, playing his last Test match in 1992 and publishing his post-playing autobiography whilst I was still, literally, in short trousers

Lara batted with an electricity that no contemporary could come close to matching, and a number of his innings, especially against the Australians, were the stuff of epic poetry. People with chips on their shoulders - and why Lara was so burdened with one I cannot think - are capable of frantic, unexpected emotional and physical motion, and when this is coupled with the genius that so regularly visited itself on the Trinidadian at the crease, it can make for a beautifully harrowing scene that entirely transcends sport and passes into drama

Tendulkar I nearly did not include, and that you may find surprising, for he has set the canon for modern batsmanship. There is something about being told that someone's brilliance is unquestionable that riles, and were it not for the memory of his thrice successively whipping Hoggard for four through midwicket from balls swinging out through the corridor of uncertainty, he might not have made this side, for in the same innings, he was praised with such typically vigorous sycophancy for a hideous aerial inside-out drive that plopped down just beyond mid-off that I came very near to smashing the gogglebox. Not Tendulkar's fault that we should be prevented a fair chance to publicly assess him for ourselves without being accused of iconoclasm, but I consider him in the way that one might Mozart: all too perfect. Still, some men and women cry for Mozart. I'll not let my own blind-spot keep the greatest player since Sir Vivian Richards from this list

And what of Richards? Footage from his pomp acts as indomitable evidence of his arresting, fierce luminosity, but though I greatly admired the batting I was privileged enough to see as a boy, I was conscious, even then, of a sense that I was watching in action an old warrior whose status as a great was already sealed, and whose vitality at the wicket was not as it would have been four or so years previous; so for that reason, I feel I can cannot here include him

Coming in at 5, though, is a batsman that some feel might have succeeded Richards as Caribbean Master- Blaster-in-chief had he not so underachieved, but then Carl Hooper's bearish frame belied an inherent grace, his driving, in particular, lissom as the turn of a noble Florentian girl's delicately sleeved wrist at dance. If it is at all true that he’d require waking just as he was due out to bat, I like to fancy that he was woken from flightful, embroidered dreams, rich as mediaeval tapestry, whose river-carried narratives he played out abstractly at the wicket

Mark Waugh at 6? Well, I confess that, such is my distaste for his supposed off-field conduct that I allowed myself to first select the similar Damien Martyn ahead of him and then to consider Mahela Jayawardene as my 6, before coming to my senses and realising that, fine as those players have both been, I would be including either of them ahead of Waugh only to spite him. I'd suggest that his far more palatable twin was the better player, but though Steve was a significantly more attractive player than he is given credit for, Mark batted with an entrancing natural glamour that yet yielded huge numbers of runs and saw him finish with an average of over 40 in an epoch of great bowling

As should be patently clear by now, I am given to favour the aesthetic over the muscular - haughty as that sounds - and it is Sangakkara's cultured strokemaking and lithe movement that see him picked ahead of Gilchrist, though the recently retired Australian is the greatest wicket-keeping batsmen there has ever been, and one of history's most destructive batsmen also. Though itself ocassionaly robust, Sangakkara's easy strokemaking seems as if cultivated amongst the vellum of some Oxbridge library and relaxedly practiced in the holidays along the marbled white corridors of shaded Eastern palaces

Flintoff may seem like an obvious choice, and some may begin to wonder why there are no Pakistan cricketers in this team, but I must tell you that Saaed Anwar - about as good a timer of the ball as I've ever seen - was seriously considered for an opening booth and that Abdul Razzaq only missed out on the all-rounder spot here occupied by Flintoff by just a whisker. It is not, actually, for his brutish willow-wielding that Freddy is included here, for although that can stir to the umpteenth degree, it can be frustrating in equal measure: it is thanks to the game-altering rumble of energy - like the beating pulse of a powerful sea, to slightly borrow from Kipling - that his bowling can swirl up that he finds a place among players far more artistic than himself. Oh, I've never liked Botham, great cricketer though he most certainly was

I first became consciously convinced of Shane Warne’s actual greatness, though my subconcsious had long, long accepted it as a given, during the short, extra special spell he bowled at Trescothick and - more pointedly - Strauss on the evening of the 2nd day of the 2nd Test at Edgbaston in 2005

It is not merely that he bowled Strauss with a delivery as unplayable as the one he had so long ago famously bowled Gatting with, it is that Warne had managed, against reason, to turn the game on its psychological axis by adopting an attitude that suggested that it was actually England that were under the cosh, not the Australian side that rationality told us had the odds so heavily stacked against it. It seemed certain – absolutely certain - that Warne was going to get a wicket that evening through his sheer force of will and unmatchable skill, and when he did so with quite such an incredible ball, the players padding up in the England dressing room must have begun to fear, as I was doing at the point, that he might take 4 or 5 more that evening if granted the time, therefore single-handedly putting his country, improbably, in a position to win a game accepted wisdom told us Australia could not plausibly win. As it was, Lee (completely innocuous on the 2nd evening) was inspired to take 4 wickets the next day in helping Warne bowl England out for a poor 182 and then play a huge part in almost winning the game with the bat in partnership with Warne and then Kasprowizc, but I truly do believe that England would have won that game at a canter had it not been for the pressing apprehension conjured in their minds by one extraordinary cricketer during the dying light of a Birmingham day

It was in the latter stages of Allan Donald's career that I first heard him interviewed, and when I finally did so, I near executed a backward flip over my sofa such was my shock that somebody I so feared for his exploits on the field could be quite so warmly courteous and genial off it. Even before the Atherton incident that experienced the same perverse, terrifying thrill from watching him bowl as one does from watching, say, that blood-chilling crab walk up the stairs in the director's cut of The Exorcist or from bloody-mindedly provoking ghosts during the day that you will rue coming to you with malicious intent in the sleepless night of echoing, isolated boarding school corridors. It has been said of Evelyn Waugh that he had a limitless capacity for indignation and though I did not think of Donald in such articulate terms then, 'indignant' is the adjective I attach to Donald's bowling now: woe betide any that tempt the lick of Waugh's ferocious nib; woe betide any that triggers the nuclear explosion of Donald's bright white wrath

Curtly Ambrose's silent force expanded the length of my supposedly formative years but it was not until I had the pleasure of watching him at close quarters bowl seven or eight overs of unerring accuracy at Hampshire during his last tour of England that I actually began to fathom how very, very good the bowler my generation had so unthinkingly admired really was. The bouncers and abyssal stares we had so enjoyed had by this time disappeared from his weaponry, yet that same still sharkish ruthlessness - soundless, efficient, lethal - remained, ensuring kill after pitiless kill

I've been somewhat busy with planning for the new financial year, new work developments and what-not over the past week or two, so I've not been able to muster the enthusiasm to furnish you with any pearls of cricketing wisdom (read: self-important drivel)

So what's happened during my time away

Well, Sehwag cracked another triple hundred in what transpired to be the most absurd draw played out on a quite ridiculously flat wicket in the first Test at Chennai ( South Africa are now giving India a frightful pasting in the 2nd Test on a sporting wicket at Ahmedabad), Sri Lanka posted their first win in the Caribbean but appeared to be in the soup in their first innings of the 2nd Test at Port of Spain until the elements hauled 'em out, Rana Naved has been allowed by the Pakistani cricket authorities to sign for Yorkshire after all and, most interesting of all, comic villain Shoaib Akhtar seems to have thrown down his last thunderbolt in international cricket

It is Shoaib I want to focus on, as I haven't had occasion to watch any play lately

It took me years to warm at all to the Rawalpindi Express, for the most part because I am suspicious not of extreme pace in itself, but of the idiot consensus that sheer speed is an end in itself. Moreover, he's more than a little obnoxious, isn't he, and barely does our once fair game (now so greatly tarnished) credit but I must say that my attitude toward him was considerably thawed by a ferociously hostile spell he bowled at Hayden in the 2004-5 series in Oz. Damned if I can tell you which particular session of which day of which Test it actually took place in but, my, I enjoyed it - enjoyed it more than any other spell of bowling I can remember, may the devil take me if it's not true

Remember, 'twas about the time our Antipodean friends were licking all comers left, right and centre (incredible that we beat them the next English summer, really), with that confounded Hayden at the centre of it all, laying waste to bowling attacks across the globe and I, for one, was infernal sick of it, I tell ye; infernal sick

So who should come along to wipe the leer off his over-sized face with a few volleys across the bows but that scoundrel Shoaib

No word of a lie, he fair set out to do bloody murder unto Hayden that day, dastardly daring the fellow to take a heave at anything around his chops, throwing his flopping locks back with a wicked, booming guffaw each time the horror-stricken Hayden stumbled about himself wondering where the deuce the ball had gone, as rocket after rocket passed his ear. The damn fool even took one to the helmet, if memory doesn't fail me, and only Lucifer knows how the Australian survived the blow, for Shoaib was verily in cahoots with Aeolus that day - mighty Ares, too - and would surely have killed a lesser batsman; but that's the thing itself, yer see: Hayden was on top of the world, strutting about the place like Agamemnon, and good old Shoaiby, that impudent soul, decided upon bringing him down a peg or two and he jolly well gave him what-for, didn't he? For that - and that alone - I'm sad to see the lad go, but go he finally must, the bounder

Michael Vaughan is quite right: England may have shown considerable backbone and no little skill in coming back from 1-0 down to win the series in NZ, but England will have to get much, much better if they are to avoid taking a shellacking off of big boys like the Saffers

There are so many positives to take out of the last two Tests - Siders, a mature Monty (with an arm-ball), Broaders far exceeding expectations, Straussy, KP and Bell back in the runs, Ambrose doing ok (that's a big thing) - that it's a shame to dwell on any negative aspects, but Vaughan's lack of form is something of a concern to me

Don't get me wrong, Vaughan is a fine, fine player and his cover-drive is one of the most blessed sights in cricket, but he made bugger-all runs in this series and these days lets too much go through the gate or else edges balls that he really shouldn't be. If it's just that his technique that's slipped a little, then he can iron things out, but if judgement is the isue, that's worrying, because picking length and playing the right stroke to it has always been Vaughan's biggest strength. Aggers doesn't seem to think that moving to 3 would make much difference, but I'm not so sure. Admittedly, he's played the majority of his best cricket as an opener, but he's looked, of late, too uncertain a starter (no shame in it, as Ponting, Butcher and Lara will testify) to open the innings and maybe it's time he dropped to 3, and stayed there. Providing we trust Strauss to partner Cook, that is

Elsewhere, the Tresco question, mercifully, has been answered, Broad is beginning to look the business (the consensus had been that he was shite) and could provide some sort of cover for Flintoff should the big man not, heaven forbid, make it back and I think that Hoggy should come back in place of 'Sprayer' Anderson, certainly for the early part of the summer. And Harmison? Does he really, really want to play cricket for England? 'cos 'e's looked as though he don't. Make up your mind, old boy, and put us all out of our misery, there's a good chap

So, the XI that won the last two Tests should splatter NZ in conditions over 'ere, but will those same players have enough to beat Smith and his charmless lot? We shall see

An exciting summer lies in store (if ever it gets here)

Blimey. Made hard work of that, didn't they? Still, a win's a win and, boy (seems I've been posessed by the Griegster), did they need one

What's required now is a definite decision on Strauss's place, significant runs from the top-order (Vaughan and KP could both really do with big scores - a century from each would be nice, if that's not asking too much) and, it almost goes without saying, a spot of catching practice. Had England not made such arses of themselves in the field, they might not have needed to play on the 5th day

Napier's may be a flat track, but with Siders bowling out of his skin and Jimmy A and Broaders coming along nicely, England's attack should again have too much for NZ's weak batting line-up, whilst it's unlikely that England's batsman of class will again fail to score heavily against a very friendly Black Cap bowling line-up

The momentum's now with England and I should be very surprised if they did not now wrap up their first series win away from Blighty for, like, er, a hundred million years. Mind, it is England we're on about...

Now this 'breaking news' I will comment on

Yorkshire, it seems, have all but lost their two overseas players for the season, with Pakistan pace bowler Rana Naved-ul-Hasan facing an immediate ban from county cricket after taking part in the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League and South African quick Morne Morkel - signed as cover for Rana Naved - joining the ICC-endorsed IPL, which runs from April 18th-June 1st

Yorkshire, then, are without an overseas player, and time is running out for them to acquire one (or one that's any good, at any rate)

The ECB (having taken an age to clarify things) have explained that anyone playing in the ICL will not be allowed to play in England:

'A cricketer wot 'as played in an un-auuuu-fo-rised event in the 12 months leadin' ap ta April Fool's wiwall not bloody well qualify for registration (wiv a coun'y)'

Rana has a 2-year contract at Headingley Carnegie, but a 3-year one with the ICL (which looks like a distinctly unglamorous competition to me, even with old man Lara's involvement). Yorkshire had warned the follically challenged Rana that, should he play in the ICL, then he could blu-dy well forgit abou' pleyin' fer Yourk-sher, so we can be pretty certain that his Yorkshire career is over before he's bowled a not particularly quick one (duly twatted through the covers) in anger for the county. A lucky escape for Yorkshire, too, if the fellow's previous record in county cricket is anything to go by

Now, that one had been on the cards for a while, but the Morkel situation has come out of the blue. The second set of IPL auctions today saw him snapped up for $60,000 by Jaipur, the side that also chucked a load of cash at Hampshire's 'Aussie Freddy Flintoff' (in that he has blonde hair and so very rarely plays Test cricket for his country, not because he's actually anywhere near as good as Mark Ealham, let alone the Flintster) and Dimitri Mascarenhas

So, Morkel'll miss the beginning of the season playing IPL cricket and then miss the rest of it when he joins up with the South African tourists, whom look likely to club the Vaughan era to a bloody end come late-summer. What will Yourk-sher do? The suspense, I fear, might well kill me

Ha! One half-decent Test match performance and who does Chris Martin think he is? Joel bleedin' Garner?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/7289560.stm/

Ruffled KP with a short one, did you? KP's own brand of chat gets on my nerves but Chris Martin thinking that he can get to a cricketer with more ability than the whole NZ side put together? Incredible hubris from a man that would struggle to get a bowl with my own beloved, and truly awful, Druids CC (for whom I am yet to take 5 wickets in a match, or score a ton). Pietersen's just not playing all that well, Martin: his unconfident showing and early dismissal in the 2nd innings had almost nowt to do wit' thee, in the grand scheme of things

Do what you do best, FIGJAM, and make him go fetch (just don't tell to do so: funny as it is, we really shouldn't approve of that sort of thing, tee hee)